


On the Physics of Magical Space Hammers

by shinyopals



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Jane Foster Loves Science, Jane and Mjolnir have an understanding, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Thor Is Not Stupid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-16 01:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5808031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinyopals/pseuds/shinyopals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>‘So what does it mean to be “Worthy”?’ Jane asked.</i>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>Jane doesn't mind sharing her life with Mjolnir. She just wishes she understood it a bit better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Physics of Magical Space Hammers

‘So what does it mean to be “Worthy”?’ Jane asked.

Mjolnir was sitting on the edge of the table. Thor, flipping through a cookbook, looking for something he liked, was not paying it attention. Jane had needed a break from her work and she’d wandered over to make some tea for them both. She’d sat down to wait for the kettle, and found herself staring at the hammer.

When Thor had first come to live with her, only a few weeks back, he’d tried to be very strict with himself about putting his things away and storing Mjolnir on the coat hooks by the door. What she suspected was a thousand years of being picked up after by other people hadn’t taken long to show though, and he’d spent more time apologising for his mess than remembering to pick it up. In the end, Jane had pointed to her own piles of work and masses of books and told him that he should feel at home being as messy as she was.

This was why Mjolnir was currently sitting on her kitchen table. 

She’d seen it before, of course - plenty of times, up close as well as far away. But Mjolnir was _Thor’s_ and she always felt a sense of something more. She touched his clothes and moved his things when it was convenient and was, by now, happy to touch _him_ anywhere she could without very much warning at all. The hammer, however, seemed to almost exude this feeling of not being hers. Which was fine: she didn’t want a magical hammer to look after. She just felt very tentative about it. He’d told her all about his banishment and regaining his powers and Odin’s spell, but she still felt it was miles outside of her understanding.

Thor glanced up from his reading and watched her for a few moments, a soft smile playing on his features. She was leaning down slightly, to be more on a level with Mjolnir. 

‘You saw my actions in New Mexico,’ he said at last. ‘I confess I did not expect the end result to be as it was, but apparently that was what was meant.’

‘Yeah, I do remember,’ she agreed, thinking back to the day that defied categorisation in her memories. So much was wonderful and terrible, all rolled into one. She sat up and leaned across to Thor, running one hand down his cheek and enjoying the familiarity of the slight prickles from his beard and the way his eyes lit up. There were no cuts and bruises from that day. There hadn’t been since the day itself. Neither had any of his battles since then marked him. She just couldn’t help but remember them. ‘It’s just, I was thinking-’ She frowned as she tried to work out what to say next. ‘If “Worthy” was literally throwing yourself into potential death with absolutely no plan, all to save some people’s asses, it’d be pretty much all the Avengers, wouldn’t it? So there’s something more, right?’

Sometimes she hesitated to ask these sorts of questions because Mjolnir seemed too close to Thor, but if she’d feared his reaction at all, she needn’t have. Instead he leaned over and pulled her into his lap, all but picking her up with one hand as he did so and settling his arms around her.

‘Any of the Avengers, maybe,’ he said, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers, ‘and you yourself, of course.’

‘Thor,’ she said, rolling her eyes.

‘You fought Malekith and risked your life to do so,’ he pointed out stubbornly, ‘and if _absolutely no plan_ is a prerequisite, I seem to recall you tried to drag me from under a falling ship.’ He bumped his nose with hers. ‘Not that I would wish you to try that again.’

‘ _Thor_ ,’ she grumbled again, feeling her cheeks heat slightly in the face of his sincerity.

He laughed, and dropped a very light kiss on her top lip. ‘I cannot say I fully understand it,’ he answered. ‘It is more than just an action. A way of thought, perhaps? A life lived well? A connection between wielder and hammer? All of these and more, and magic I cannot explain to you, not to do it justice. Mjolnir has chosen me, and I have done all I can to remain worthy of that choice.’

‘Hmm,’ said Jane thoughtfully, tearing her gaze from Thor and back to Mjolnir.

‘And most definitely nothing quantifiable, alas,’ said Thor, and she could hear the laughter in his voice so she poked him in the ribcage. He’d guessed her thoughts all too well, although she wasn’t exactly unpredictable.

‘How much does it weigh?’ she asked.

Thor blinked. ‘How much does it… _weigh_?’ he repeated.

She gestured to the kitchen scales, out and ready for whatever dinner plans Thor settled on. ‘If we put it on there, what happens?’

He frowned. ‘Shall we try?’ he offered.

‘Have you never weighed it?’

‘It feels comfortable to me,’ said Thor, with a shrug. ‘And some days it seems heavier than others. Careful measurement has never been a cornerstone of how I approach the Realms.’

Jane jumped to her feet and grabbed the scales, placing them on the kitchen table and calibrating the zero. Thor picked up Mjolnir and sat, waiting patiently for her. She glanced at him with slight hesitation.

‘Are you sure it’s OK?’ she asked. ‘Like, it’s a bit… silly.’

He grinned easily. ‘One thing I have learned here on Midgard, is that silliness often begets science of importance,’ he said.

As he placed Mjolnir on the scale, Jane found herself holding her breath. A breath that came out as baffled laughter a few moments later once she saw the numbers on the scales.

They changed.

One moment they were at five kilos, the highest the scale allowed. The next they were at zero. Then, somehow, they managed to swing to negative five.

‘Negative? How can they be-? You know what, fine, negative numbers, I’m just going to go with it.’

Behind her shoulder, Thor chuckled.

Jane shook her head at Mjolnir. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re messing with me,’ she said.

‘I swear to you I’m doing nothing,’ said Thor.

‘No, not you, Mjolnir,’ said Jane. She eyed the hammer. ‘Fine, you’ve made your point, no more weighing.’

‘I don’t know if that’s quite what’s happening,’ said Thor, in a slightly bemused tone. He removed the hammer nonetheless. Jane replaced the scales on the kitchen counter.

‘Hey, if my computer programs can gang up on me, your magical space hammer definitely can,’ said Jane, turning back to Thor. ‘Some things just don’t like science.’

He grinned openly at her, reached forward to slide one of his hands down her arm and then squeeze her fingers. ‘You may be more correct that you know,’ he said. Jane raised her eyebrows curiously. ‘There is a theory that certain things in this universe can never be explained in the terms of your science, that forever they must simply be called ‘magic’ and nothing else.’

‘Really?’ Jane chewed on her lip for a moment. ‘When you say ‘theory’, what exactly do you mean?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘In layman’s terms, people usually mean theory to mean something they’re not completely sure about. In physics I’d usually use theory when I’m pretty much completely certain I’m correct. Like the theory of gravity, or evolution. There’s a _lot_ of supporting evidence. Hypothesis is for when there’s not as much evidence.’

Thor grinned. ‘A hypothesis, then,’ he said. ‘Some people seek to prove that the universe is ultimately built on magic and that not everything can be explained scientifically. Mjolnir is an item that has never been possible to fully explain so is therefore considered to be evidence of this.’

Jane looked down at Mjolnir. ‘You,’ she said to the hammer, ‘are _definitely_ mocking me. Don’t think I’ll forget this in a hurry.’ She heard Thor laugh again but she ignored it. ‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘I’ll help with dinner. What are we making?’

~*~

‘Have you figured it out yet?’

Jane blinked back to reality and peered up from her books at the not-particularly welcome intruder. She supposed Tony Stark did have the right to wander in his own tower, but this was one of the many reasons she preferred not being in New York. Next to her, Darcy had her feet propped up on the desk as she tapped away at her laptop and she glanced up to see Jane’s questioning gaze.

‘No, you didn’t miss any conversation, that’s what he led with,’ she said. 

‘Right,’ said Jane. ‘Figured what out?’ she said, turning to address Stark.

‘How to pick up the hammer,’ he replied, gesturing to Mjolnir on the desk. ‘Also, just as important, why is it here? He doesn’t normally leave it lying around.’

‘Oh, they were making out on the desk when I arrived,’ said Darcy. ‘He beat a quick retreat and left it behind.’

‘Thanks Darcy,’ muttered Jane through gritted teeth as Stark sniggered.

‘Anyway, can you pick it up?’

‘Why would I be able to?’ said Jane.

‘I figured you’d have tried to work out the trick,’ said Stark.

‘It’s not a trick,’ said Jane. ‘Why would it be a trick?’

‘How about, _because magic isn’t a thing_?’ said Stark. ‘You even said he says magic and science are one and the same.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Jane slowly, ‘I guess. But there’s more to it than that. And Mjolnir isn’t a trick. You can lift it if you’re worthy.’

‘Whatever,’ said Stark. ‘I’ll work it out.’

His hand hovered, and for a moment Jane found her breath catching as she thought he was going to try. Instead he remained still for a moment before withdrawing his hand. ‘I guess I should ask,’ he said. ‘But I’m definitely going to figure it out.’

‘Just because you can’t lift it, doesn’t make it a trick,’ said Jane.

Stark raised an eyebrow. ‘I _would_ be able to lift it,’ he said. ‘It’s all just a matter of resonances or quantum states or something like that.’ He grinned. ‘You just don’t think it’s a trick because you like thinking your boyfriend is special.’

Jane huffed and glanced at the hammer. ‘Any time you want to, like, “accidentally” crash through the desk and drop on his feet, feel free,’ she said to Mjolnir.

‘It doesn’t work by talking to it,’ said Stark, shuffling backwards in a way that was meant to look casual. Mjolnir didn’t move.

Jane patted Mjolnir on the handle. ‘I guess it’s probably better that you don’t destroy furniture because I get mildly irritated,’ she said. ‘I mean, that’s pretty unWorthy of me.’

‘ _Really_?’ said Stark.

‘She talks to her computers too,’ said Darcy. ‘And unlike yours, hers don’t talk back. How’s it going, Jarvis? Did you find that info yet?’

‘Regretfully, Ms Lewis, His Highness’s phone number is not a matter of public record.’

Both Jane and Start turned to Darcy, who shrugged. ‘Prince Harry,’ she said. ‘I mean, he’s not the _best_ option, but all of the good princes are taken.’

‘Wow, really?’ said Stark. ‘Jarvis, _why_?’

Darcy grinned. Jane shrugged and returned to her work. 

When Stark left - and it turned out he’d actually come in to talk to her about one of her models - he did so with a backwards glance at Mjolnir. Jane found herself watching the hammer again too. It wasn’t alive. It wasn’t even like Jarvis, but there was something…

‘You all right there, boss lady?’ asked Darcy, nudging her arm.

‘Do you… feel anything? Around Mjolnir?’ Jane wrinkled her nose even as she asked. The words sounded wrong. She wasn’t sure how to describe it.

Darcy blinked. ‘“Feel”?’ she echoed. ‘Like, physically or emotionally? Because nope on the former, and pretty sure the latter is just you going goo-goo-eyed over your boyfriend’s stuff. Or alien stuff. I never know with you which is more exciting. Man, there’s a thought: does him being alien do it for you? I bet it does. Or are you still too busy being distracted by the gorgeous expanse of buffness?’

‘No, I meant-’ she waved vaguely at Mjolnir, ignoring Darcy’s tangent as she tried to focus on the hammer. ‘It feels like it’s Thor’s. And it feels like there’s… something else.’

‘Static electricity?’

Frowning, Jane shook her head and held her hand over Mjolnir, an inch from the surface. ‘There’s no physical sensation. I just can’t shake off… something.’

‘Huh,’ said Darcy, raising her own arm to copy Jane’s gesture and then simply shrugging. ‘Search me, I got nothing. Maybe Thor wants it to watch out for you. Maybe it likes being talked to. Maybe it recognises a kindred spirit in someone who’s totally into Thor.’

Laughing and shaking her head, Jane withdrew her hand and settled back into her work.

She did talk to Mjolnir though. She couldn’t help it. Like muttering at a computer program or a textbook, grumbles at things that didn’t talk back were second nature to her by this point. Thor clearly thought it was mid-way between amusing and adorable and since he had a cute way of smiling and watching her, she didn’t really complain. Darcy merely accepted it as just-another-Jane-thing, like having subroutines in her code named after whatever was annoying her that week (‘If I’m going to be taking this code apart a bunch of times, I need to _enjoy_ it,’ she’d explained, and Darcy had just shrugged and asked if they could name one after an ex).

All the same, Jane couldn’t help but occasionally feel like something was _listening_. 

It wasn’t _intelligence_ , not how she understood it. That was too normal, too _human_ a concept. But no matter how she arranged the words as she tried to explain it even to herself, they always came tumbling down. She was beginning to understand why Thor himself had trouble. Magic didn’t fit into the world as she boxed it, no matter how open minded she was.

‘It’s like quantum physics,’ she explained to Darcy.

‘Oh god,’ said Darcy. ‘I am _just about_ getting what you talk about in astrophysics. Don’t bring that into this or I’m getting another couple of interns.’

‘No, but that’s what I mean,’ said Jane. ‘My brain - our brains - we can’t conceive of that world because it doesn’t make sense. Things that can… well, effectively walk through walls, or be everywhere at once. We just can’t handle it. We’ve built words, like _particle_ and _wave_ , that we use to explain observations, and equations that explain them better, but we can’t close our eyes and picture it happening because we just _can’t_.’

‘Does this mean you’re going to try math on Mjolnir? Because you have, like, seventeen papers you’re halfway through writing, and trying to work out that hammer is probably going to involve inventing an entire new field of study. Which is fine, don’t get me wrong, go you. But you also have that conference in Manilla in three weeks and you’re not ready for that yet, and then those lectures in Reykjavik, and don’t forget-’

‘Fine, fine,’ muttered Jane. ‘I’ll save Mjolnir math for my spare time-’

‘ _What_ spare time?’

‘-and besides, Thor’s out doing Avengers stuff a lot recently so it’s not like I have much chance.’

‘You should tell him to get back here because you want to get up close and personal with his hammer.’

Jane snorted. ‘I’m not fifteen, Darcy. If I sext Thor, I don’t use euphemisms like that.’

‘Ohmygod, you sext Thor? Details. _Now._ I didn’t even know you knew how to text.’

With as much dignity as she could muster, Jane ignored Darcy and went back to her work.

In light of her busy schedule and Thor’s all-too-frequent absences, she didn’t get too long to pontificate on (or to) Mjolnir over the next few weeks. Instead she prepped her conference talk and her lectures and managed to get some new stuff down to paper as well as a bit of additional polishing to her existing (half-written) papers.

Thor caught up with them again after Iceland. Jane had flown from there to Nova Scotia to spend a week or two as close to the middle of nowhere as she could, while still having wifi. She’d spent the past week or so surrounded by _people_ , who wanted to talk and debate and, horror of horrors, _network_ , and she was really looking forward to a bit of alone-time to relax and think and stargaze.

And, of course, have sex with her boyfriend. She still counted it as alone-time and relaxation time, even if Thor was there with her.

He settled into the small cottage she’d rented as though he’d lived there all his life, of course. He’d brought some Earth clothes - fairly nondescript, basic stuff, unlike the perfectly tailored outfits he wore in New York. In them, he could just about pass for semi-normal, and that was enough to keep them safe from hordes of journalists descending on the closest village to the cottage. Instead of superheroing, he spent his time cooking, exploring - dragging her out for long walks as he did so - and resting up.

Mjolnir accompanied him to the cottage, of course, but Jane was content to just not worry too much about it until her brain had recharged.

Or she had been, anyway, until one day Thor had gone out for a morning run, leaving Mjolnir on top of one of her vitally important papers.

She glared down at it and tried to project her glare mentally to however many miles away Thor was.

‘Ugh,’ she said. 

In fairness to Thor, while he did often leave Mjolnir lying around the place, he was usually far too considerate to leave it on top of anything, except maybe furniture. Sometimes, though, he just forgot. She took it as a mark in favour of how at home he felt with her, but it was incredibly annoying.

Still grumbling to herself, Jane knelt down and gently tugged at the edge of the paper. No movement. It was well and truly stuck.

Glancing at the clock, she sighed. He would be at least another hour. She could wait, but she really did want to look at her diagram. She had the a soft copy on her laptop, of course, but last night she’d printed it out and doodled on it and in the light of the morning she was pretty confident her doodles were inspiring. Or at least, relevant. Which was why she wanted a look.

She looked at Mjolnir, feeling, as she always did, like she wasn’t alone in the room.

‘Look, I know it’s against the rules, but I don’t suppose you could make a teeny, tiny exception?’ she asked. ‘I mean, I’m not asking to move you. I was just hoping you could momentarily, like, let me get to this sheet of paper without, you know, taking an axe to the coffee table. Which is an option, don’t get me wrong.’ She placed a hand on the handle and gave it a nudge, but there was no movement. ‘Pretty please. I won’t tell him - it’ll be our secret! I know I’m not Worthy or anything, but honestly, I don’t think leaving your magical space hammer on top of someone else’s physics is particularly Worthy, is it?’

Something shifted in her hand.

Jane yelped and nearly fell backwards, but some instinct kept her holding on as the hammer, barely, almost imperceptibly, utterly impossibly, seemed to move with her hand. It felt like pushing a boulder up a hill, harder and harder each single millimetre, but she strained and gripped tightly and then, suddenly, magically, _ridiculously_ , her single sheet of paper was caught on a gust of wind from the window and blown loose.

Gasping, Jane dropped the hammer with a thud against the table, falling back slightly and sitting down to stare at it. Her hands ached.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘OK.’ She wasn’t out of breath, exactly, but she felt like she’d run a marathon. ‘So that happened.’ She blinked. ‘Um. Thank you?’ Old habits died hard, and she patted the side of the hammer. ‘OK,’ she said to herself again, and, mechanically, picked up the sheet of paper that had blown loose.

It was exactly what she wanted, but her mind wasn’t quite seeing it right now. She rubbed her nose and stared at Mjolnir.

She wasn’t Worthy, and that was fine: she knew that. But did this mean there were degrees? Or did Mjolnir have a… personality? Did it _like_ her?

‘Or are you just doing this to mess with me again?’ she asked. ‘So I never get around to doing math on you?’

It seemed possible. She grinned. She could cope with that. It had to like her a little, or it wouldn’t even bother, after all.

When Thor got back, she was still sitting on small section of floor between couch and coffee table, her own paper in one hand, although barely read despite the daring rescue. 

‘Hi!’ she said, smiling up at him broadly. His running gear was pressed tightly against his skin because he liked running in the rain, which similarly dripped from his hair and beard. She’d always sent her exes packing after they’d been running or to the gym because it had always seemed _gross_ but somehow Thor managed to overcome that.

‘Lost in your work?’ he asked, presumably seeing all her papers spread about and the one in her hand and assuming she’d been busy.

‘Kinda,’ she said. Part of her was on the verge of telling him, but that she’d told Mjolnir she wouldn’t hung awkwardly in the back of her mind. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind. And she probably hadn’t even needed to promise she wouldn’t. It had just been babbling with an end result she hadn’t expected, after all. But she _had_ said it and even if she didn’t know Mjolnir, she knew Asgardian honour. She’d said she wouldn’t tell him, so she wouldn’t. ‘It’s been a good morning,’ she settled with, because it had, in a strange way.

He smiled, sunshine beaming down on her with simple pleasure that she was happy.

Jane extended a hand up to him and he pulled her to her feet, sliding his hand up her arm and the other moving to caress her cheek as he got her in front of him.

‘Ew, you’re all wet,’ she said, pretending to wrinkle her nose as though it would fool either of them.

He grinned and placed a whisper-soft kiss on her lips. ‘How deeply unpleasant,’ he murmured, ‘I had better hurry out of these clothes.’

‘Damn right, you better,’ said Jane, prodding him in the direction of the bedroom. She still held her rescued sheet of paper in her hands and she glanced back to place it on the coffee table as Thor retreated, throwing a further filthy grin in her direction as he did. ‘No more wind storms please,’ she told Mjolnir sternly. ‘Since after all that effort I still didn’t actually read this stupid thing yet.’

Then, with a grin, she hurried into the bedroom after Thor.

A couple of hours later, her paper was still sitting exactly where she’d left it. Whether that was just a lucky coincidence or something else, she didn’t know, but she thanked Mjolnir anyway. After all, if she was sharing her life with Thor, she was going to be sharing it with Mjolnir, and it never hurt to be polite. Especially to something that agreed that weighing down important physics was definitely unWorthy.

**Author's Note:**

> Totally the prequel to an epic novel-length fic I will probably never get around to writing...


End file.
